U.S. launches 60 trade probes that could pave way for forced-labor tariffs on nearly all imports

The United States is opening a sweeping new front in its trade policy, launching dozens of investigations that could eventually put tariffs on a vast share of goods entering the country — this time in the name of combating forced labor.

On March 12, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced it had initiated 60 separate investigations under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 into whether foreign governments are failing to ban and police imports of goods made with forced labor. The probes cover economies that account for roughly 99% of all U.S. imports, from China and Vietnam to Canada, the European Union and Japan.

The move pushes a trade law long associated with battles over intellectual property and industrial subsidies into the center of a global human-rights fight, and it comes just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down a key legal foundation of the Trump administration’s earlier tariff regime.

“Companies that use forced labor to produce their goods can undercut U.S. producers and exporters by artificially lowering their labor costs,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement announcing the investigations. “For too long, American workers and firms have had to compete against that artificial cost advantage.”

The new initiative does not allege that the targeted economies themselves rely on forced labor in domestic production. Instead, it asks whether their governments fail to prohibit the importation of goods produced wholly or in part with forced labor and to enforce those bans effectively. Under Section 301, such a failure can be found “unreasonable” if it amounts to a “persistent pattern of conduct that permits any form of forced or compulsory labor.”

If U.S. officials ultimately conclude that this conduct burdens or restricts American commerce, they can recommend tariffs or other trade measures, or negotiate changes in foreign laws and enforcement.

A rarely used clause becomes the centerpiece

Section 301 authorizes the United States to investigate and respond to foreign practices that are unjustifiable, unreasonable or discriminatory and harm U.S. trade. It was central to the Trump administration’s 2018 and 2019 tariffs on Chinese goods over intellectual property and technology transfer.

But the statute also contains a provision that has drawn relatively little attention until now: a definition of “unreasonable” that includes a “persistent pattern of conduct that… permits any form of forced or compulsory labor.”

In a notice prepared for publication in the Federal Register, USTR said the investigations would examine whether each of the 60 economies maintains a ban on imports produced with forced labor and whether that ban is being effectively enforced. The failures at issue, it said, “allow imports of forced labor goods to enter into commerce in those economies and thus confer unfair competitive advantages to producers in those economies over U.S. producers.”

The notice points to the scale of the global problem. Citing the International Labour Organization, it notes that as of 2021 an estimated 28 million people worldwide were in situations of forced labor, and that profits generated by forced labor in the private economy reached almost $64 billion a year.

U.S. officials highlight particular risks in supply chains that feed into everyday products, including cotton and textiles; minerals used in solar panels and electric-vehicle batteries; fish and seafood processed into fishmeal and fish oil; and palm oil used in food, fuel and consumer goods.

From border enforcement to external pressure

The United States already bans imports of goods made with forced labor under Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930. That law, strengthened by Congress in 2015, has been enforced more aggressively in recent years by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which has issued dozens of “withhold release orders” detaining shipments suspected of relying on forced or indentured labor.

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, in effect since 2022, goes further by presuming that goods linked to China’s Xinjiang region or to entities on a government list are made with forced labor and therefore barred at the border unless importers can prove otherwise.

The new Section 301 initiative is different in kind. Rather than focusing on U.S. importers and specific shipments, it puts foreign governments under scrutiny for what they allow into their own markets.

“In the absence of similar prohibitions and effective enforcement by other economies, goods produced with forced labor that are excluded from the U.S. market may be diverted to other markets,” the Federal Register notice states. That diversion, it argues, undermines both U.S. efforts to combat forced labor and the competitive position of American firms.

The economies under investigation span all major U.S. trading partners. Alongside China, the list includes the 27-member European Union, Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Brazil, Vietnam, Bangladesh and many others in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Public comment dockets opened in mid-March. Written comments and requests to testify at public hearings are due April 15, according to USTR. Hearings are scheduled for April 28 to May 1 before the interagency Section 301 Committee at the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington. Under the statute, the trade representative generally has 12 months to complete the investigations and decide whether to take action in cases that do not involve World Trade Organization agreements.

A new path after a legal setback

The forced-labor investigations are part of a broader recalibration of U.S. trade policy after the Supreme Court curtailed the administration’s use of a different law.

In February, the court ruled that President Donald Trump had exceeded his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act by using it to impose sweeping tariffs unrelated to a specific national emergency. The administration was required to lift those duties by Feb. 24.

In response, the White House turned to other legal tools. On Jan. 24, it imposed a temporary global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act, which allows short-term duties of up to 15% in certain circumstances. In March, it launched two major sets of Section 301 probes: one into what it calls “structural excess capacity” in industries such as steel, aluminum and electric vehicles, and another into forced-labor import bans.

Trade lawyers and policy analysts say the strategy could rebuild a far-reaching tariff framework that rests on Section 301’s procedures and findings rather than on emergency powers.

Allies, developing nations and the risk of friction

The inclusion of close allies such as Canada, the EU, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom has drawn particular attention. Many of those economies have adopted or proposed their own rules to address forced labor and broader supply-chain abuses, including import bans and due diligence requirements for large companies.

By opening investigations anyway, the United States is signaling that it expects other governments not just to have laws on the books but to enforce them at a level it considers comparable to U.S. practice.

For developing and middle-income countries, the demands may be harder to meet. Building the kind of enforcement apparatus that U.S. customs has developed — from data analytics to overseas investigations — can require significant resources and expertise. Some of the economies now under review have also entered into recent executive-branch agreements with Washington that include commitments to adopt forced-labor import bans, even though those pacts have not been ratified by Congress.

If USTR eventually imposes tariffs on particular economies, the impact could be wide-ranging. Because the 60 targets account for nearly all U.S. imports, even product-specific measures could affect hundreds of billions of dollars in trade if they are calibrated broadly. Past Section 301 tariffs in the China intellectual-property case ultimately covered more than $350 billion in imports.

Any new tariffs would function as additional taxes on imported goods. Economic research on earlier trade actions suggests that at least part of the cost of such duties is typically passed on to U.S. buyers in the form of higher prices, though the effect varies by sector and timing.

High stakes for companies and workers

For multinational manufacturers and retailers, the investigations add another layer of uncertainty to already complex supply-chain planning. Companies that source from the 60 economies — effectively, most major global producers — will be weighing whether to submit comments, testify at hearings or adjust sourcing in anticipation of possible duties.

Compliance officers are likely to face pressure to deepen tracing and auditing of inputs such as cotton, seafood, palm oil and critical minerals, even in countries that have not traditionally been at the center of U.S. forced-labor enforcement.

The potential effects on workers are more difficult to predict. Advocates for labor rights have long argued that linking trade measures to forced labor can strengthen the hand of those pushing for better protections. At the same time, experts warn that sudden shifts in sourcing, or broad tariffs on entire economies, can lead buyers to exit markets abruptly, cutting jobs at factories and farms that are not themselves implicated in abuses.

USTR has invited comments on how best to target any future actions to address forced labor while limiting unintended harm. It has also highlighted the possibility of resolving some investigations through changes in foreign law or enforcement, rather than through tariffs.

With hearings set for late April and decisions due within a year, governments, companies and rights groups now face a compressed timetable to make their case. The outcome will test whether U.S. trade law can be used to put meaningful pressure on governments to keep forced-labor goods out of global supply chains — and how far Washington and its partners are willing to go when human rights and the politics of tariffs collide.